Drip campaigns get 80% more opens and three times more clicks than single-send emails, but many marketers still see them as an afterthought. Drip email marketing is one of the best ways to nurture leads, convert prospects and retain existing customers. In this blog, you’ll learn what drip marketing is, why it works and how
Drip campaigns get 80% more opens and three times more clicks than single-send emails, but many marketers still see them as an afterthought.
Drip email marketing is one of the best ways to nurture leads, convert prospects and retain existing customers. In this blog, you’ll learn what drip marketing is, why it works and how to build campaigns that convert and deliver commercial results.
Drip email marketing is an automated sequence of emails, triggered by customer behaviour or action, that are sent over time.
It’s a bit like a customer service assistant and sales rep for your website rolled into one, who follows up at the right time. Whether that’s welcoming a new subscriber, nudging someone back to an abandoned basket, or checking in at the end of a free trial or purchase.
Unlike one-off blasts or newsletters, drip campaigns are structured journeys designed to move people toward an outcome, whether that’s a purchase, renewal, or re-engagement.
Imagine a shopper signs up to a clothing retailer’s list. Within minutes, they receive a welcome email with a discount code. Two days later, a styling guide lands in their inbox. A week later, “bestsellers you might like” arrives.
That’s a drip email campaign in action. Steady, relevant messages over time.
Drip campaigns make personalisation scalable and efficient because you don’t have to send every email manually.
Once built, they run in the background, freeing teams from repetitive follow-ups.
You could write a drip campaign for a new trial startup, starting with a quick-start guide, a customer story, a tip tips email and a final “book a free trial” nudge email.
These emails would be triggered by a specific action, like an email submission, and would run automatically.
If the customer hasn’t enrolled in a free trial by the end, you could enrol them in a new drip campaign or just have them re-enter the same campaign.
The point is, all these emails would send automatically as part of the campaign, giving you more time to do other things.
Why drip campaigns are effective for engagement
The best drip campaigns work because they combine timing, relevance, and consistency.
Messages land automatically when attention is highest, like day one of a trial or minutes after a cart is abandoned.
Behavioural triggers ensure the content matters to the recipient because the emails are related to a certain action they’ve taken.
And a steady cadence builds familiarity and trust.
Take abandoned carts.
About 70% of online shopping baskets are abandoned.
A single email can claw back some sales.
But, a drip sequence (reminder, incentive, final nudge) recovers far more because it slowly moves the customer towards a purchase in a few steps. A sequence of emails is also less likely to be missed than a single one.
Imagine a DIY store has a three-part cart abandonment campaign.
Email one reminds the shopper what items they left behind.
Email two (if no action has been taken) highlights positive reviews of the items in the cart.
If still no action has been taken, email three offers an incentive, like free shipping or a discount if the order is completed within 24 hours.
This slow drip of information leading into an offer is what makes drip campaigns more effective than single send emails using a message like (you didn’t complete your purchase)
Drip campaigns work best when tied to customer journeys.
For eCommerce, this might mean a welcome series after sign-up, cart and browse abandonment flows, or post-purchase upsells and cross-sells.
For B2B, onboarding sequences and nurture flows towards a demo tend to work best.
Imagine you’re s B2B SaaS company. Your drip campaign could include a welcome email for a trial user, a product tour on day four, a case study seven days after they signed up and an invitation to book a full demo.
If they haven’t taken the desired action, you could move them into a new nurture series that sends them relevant informational content like webinars, whitepapers and research reports, all keeping your prospect warm for when they are ready to buy.
Re-engagement campaigns are useful too.
Say you have customers who’ve bought from you before, but haven’t engaged with your brand in a while (like six months). For B2C sequence of “we miss you” emails with personalised product recommendations and a loyalty perk could bring these customers back.
Or a SaaS company could send former customers a “top features you’re missing out on” sequence, leading to a renewal discount to get them back.
Triggers make drips powerful by delivering messages when they matter most. These are the most common types of triggers you can use:
As an example, imagine you use a free trial sign-up as the trigger for a 14-day drip campaign.
On day one you send a welcome email.
On day three you send a quick start guide.
Day seven follows up with a case study and testimonials.
Day 10 offers product support so the user properly understands how to get the most out of the product.
On day 14, you send a prompt to upgrade to a paid for version of the product.
This type of campaign works because it mirrors the stages of the customer evaluating your product, ensuring you’re in touch at each stage, providing additional information and support and making it more likely they’ll sign up.
A good drip email campaign needs a plan that uses the right software and matches the email messages with the customer journey.
Here’s how you can plan your drip campaign in 4 easy steps:
The success of drip campaigns is about final outcomes. But there are metrics you can use for campaigns to judge whether you’re emails are working.
Open rates show if subject lines resonate with users.
Click-throughs can show whether your content and CTAs are engaging users.
Conversions prove that your emails, CTAs and landing pages align with what the user expects and the messages you’re delivering.
For eCommerce, revenue per email is critical, while unsubscribe and spam complaints are a sign that your content isn’t hitting the mark.
Benchmark for drip campaigns varies by industry, but they usually outperform the results from single send, unpersonalised messages.
Although it’s ambitious, a drip campaign can convert between 5 and 10% of recipients to make a purchase. In B2B, nurture flows can almost double the CTR of newsletters.
A full email drip campaign should mix a series of automated email types to move users towards an action.
Drip campaigns aren’t just about automating sends and segmenting lists.
They’re carefully mapped customer journeys, using specific behaviours and actions to be triggered at the right time to get the right message to the right person, and constantly improved using data.
If you’ve not done a drip campaign yet, you don’t have to run out and start creating them for everything. Start with a few key campaign types like onboarding, cart abandonment or re-engagement campaigns.
If you need help getting better results from your email marketing, our email marketing agency can help.
Just get in touch for a free strategy session where we’ll either map out a plan to get you started with emails or audit your current email activity to see where the biggest improvements are that will deliver the best results.
Speak to a member of our team and start your project today!
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